Beer Like You Have Never Seen It
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:31 AM

In October the Guardian launched a three-year project devoted to the development of Katine, a village area in Uganda. In concert with this program is a series of short video reports. The latest concerns the local beer, ajon, made from locally-grown millet. It is consumed in a hut that serves as a pub, and drinkers use long "straws" to imbibe out of a communal pot. What to do about those who overindulge? According to the pubman, "If you get too much drunk they say 'you go home now, you're tired'; the rest can continue."

The video is pretty fascinating. (I can only watch Guardian videos using Internet Explorer, not Firefox, however.) The other Katine videos repay the watching, too; here's a short one on the barber whose visit with a car battery once per week is a major source of electricity in the village -- look at all the cell phones that take advantage of his visit for a re-charge. Here's another video on the backbreaking work conducted with only the most primitive tools in the local quarry.

Labels: alcohol